New stuff

I've already posted about the new book review and music review blogs, where all my reviews will go after I post them, but I'm thinking about dividing my links posts as follows. Give me feedback and tell me if you like it.


Also, there's a new Never News Erotic news site.

Art:

Dresden, Germany has always been pretty (even when burning). And so are it's factories

Fantastically disturbing knitted art

I wish I could have seen this. It looks phenomenal

Somebody buy me one of these awesome wallets

I don't know what's going on here, but I like it (check out 5814)

”News”:

Can something that looks like a Neutral Milk Hotel album cover really have been invented by the military? Answer: Yes.

Mt. Saint Helen's pushing out a giant rock formation—complete with time lapse video

Atomic Books is carrying a Bush's Last Day countdown clock. Thank god.

The Washington Post reports on a new set of federal guidelines saying that all women, regardless of whether or not they plan to get pregnant, should observe the health factors of pregnancy (no smoking, drinking, etc). Is it just me, or is that a little. . . hindering of personal belief?

Lit:

Slate covers indie bookstores versus chains “Another superstore sales assistant had never heard of the Village Voice.”

Comics:

If you haven't read Cat and Girl, you're missing a lot of good things. A lot of them. No, seriously. Plus, I have a feeling, from a few emails I've shared with her, that Dorothy might be leaving the strip behind. Get it while you can.



Bob the Angry Flower has been, for a long time, a comic I loved but never really talked about. That's a shame. Love this site.





Some pretty funny comics on Flickr


Alan Moore's new book, Lost Girls, is being touted as a lit-porn book “It is, everyone involved with it declares, beautiful, literary and moving. It's also bluntly pornographic, with explicit sex scenes on almost every page. Beyond couplings of every combination of women and men, the story involves fetishism, incest and even a touch of bestiality, as well as a whole lot of sexual activity involving minors, all depicted in Gebbie's sensuous pastels and paints.” Buy It from Top Shelf.

Music:

A talk with Free Diamonds, my new favorite Deep Elm band

Film:

Cate Blanchette to play Bob Dylan in upcoming film(?)

Cartoons

The other day I borrowed the second DVD of the new 'The Batman' series from my nephew.

Batman's had a pretty prolific career in animated television. Way back when, we got a glimpse of him in The Scooby Movies, along with Robin, the Harlem Globetrotters, and Phyllis Diller. Not to mention Don Knotts.

I'm not sure if this came first or the godawful Super Friends that everyone seems to love did. Some people seem to love the campiness of this era of comic-cartoons; even as a kid I couldn't get into Super Friends based off of the terrible writing and pathetic plotting.

As a kid, I was a staunchly Marvel comic book fan; DC just never interested me back then—except, of course, for Batman; whereas the other DC characters seemed too solid and glowing, Batman appealed (much like the gritty Daredevil, parable-esque X-Men, and plagued Spider-Man of Marvel) to my need for depth in reading. Mind you, I was a little kid at the time.

When I got home from school every day, the Bruce Timm version of Batman was on. This was the era to be an animated Batman fan—Bruce Timm created a mood, style, and tone for the series that has never been topped (except, of course, by himself with his Superman, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited cartoons).

When that incarnation of Batman had died (as well as the Batman/Superman era), I thought we'd be left without a Bruce Timm cartoon to show us how good cartoons based off of comics could be. Of course, he went on to do the afore mentioned series (which I love), and I'm fine.

But the people over at Warner got a little itchy at the idea of the world without a solo Batman cartoon, and so they hired Brandon Vietti (who also did work on the CG Spidey cartoon [which I also have never seen]) to start work on a new series for the WB network.

I had never actually sat down to watch this series (really, I hadn't ever had the chance) and, when my nephew and I were looking at movies the other day I found the fourth season of Timm's version and the before linked second disc of The Batman. My nephew told me not to get the new disc, as he had it; he hasn't seen the entire Bruce Timm Batman before—although he loves JLU—but he loves this new one.

So I gave it a try.

And, fuck, it's bad.

Not really bad, I guess. It did just walk away with < a href=http://blogbattery.blogspot.com/>two emmys. The design is fantastic, the villains are scarier, the music is new-ish (but not classic). That Catwoman episode is brilliant (they capture the Bats/Cats chemistry that is often overlooked in adaptations).

But the Man-Bat episode lacks forward motion; which is to say that suddenly, for no reason, Langstrom turns himself into Man-Bat with no prior information. And then Batman fights him.

The Mr. Freeze episode was terribly trite, in that Freeze is continuously saying things like, “The weather is a bit. . . muggy tonight,” and “Have an ice evening”, whereas the real Mr. Freeze is a terribly complex character to begin with ('Snow', a 5 issue arc in Legends of the Dark Knight (192-196), for example, is complex and heartbreaking), this show makes him into a parody of a villain—campy to the point of hatred (like the Super Friends).

So it's a hit and miss type of show, I guess. Worth the price of admission if you skip the first two eps and get right to the Catwoman one. I checked out the special features and was impressed by the animation of both the Bane and Penguin episodes. I'm still unsure about Joker (my nephew has a book from the series featuring him), as I feel that he might be the same self-parody that Mr. Freeze is (which is a shame because Joker is one of the scariest motherfuckers in comics); I do think his straitjacket costume is pretty cool, though.